Children in Stepfamilies: Their Legal and Family Status. Institute of Family Studies Policy Background Paper No. 4.

Harper, Patricia

One of the features of Australian society during the past 25 years, from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, has been the changing nature of the family. Significant changes have occurred in family formation and breakdown; in family composition and structures; in family relationships; and in the status, rights, and obligations of family members. This paper (1) outlines some of these changes, directing particular attention toward implications for stepfamilies; (2) examines the arrangements some families have made, especially by using adoption, to clarify and establish the legal status and family relationships of children and stepparents; (3) outlines the options available in establishing legal status and family relationships in stepfamilies; and (4) recommends changes to legislation to overcome existing problems and provide a more appropriate means of establishing legal status and clarifying relationships within stepfamilies. It is proposed that stepparents be enabled to seek guardianship or custody rights but that adoption of stepchildren be abolished. (RH)